It really does take a village. No, I haven't gone liberal, but I do keep hearing the words of Hillary Clinton in the back of my mind as I try to parent this brood of children, and realize every day that I could not do it alone! "Village" may not be the best word. "Church" might be more accurate, since so much of the help we have received have been from our awesome friends at Perimeter Church. Especially since we don't have any family in town, they are our Atlanta family, and I don't know what this transition would have been like without them.
Just for fun, I will mention a few things that the "village" has given us...
*$13,000 towards our adoption and legal fees.
*At least 20 home-cooked dee-lish meals. (I just had to start cooking again this week...isn't that amazing, 2 months of food?!)
*2 months of formula for Alana
*Hundreds of diapers! We may run out of kids before we run out of diapers.
*Lots of cutie baby outfits
*A closet full of size 5 clothes for Cate and her new "twin" sister Rihanna who happens to wear the same size. Including...
*Beautiful holiday dresses and red wool coats for the girls from my fave kid store, Gymboree
*Babysitting...including 2 date nights...ah, glorious
*yard work
*Hand-me-down toys to keep my preschool class (Cate, Will, and Ri) busy
*Childcare for Alana so that me and the kids can go to the gym (Alana can't go until she is 3 mo old, which is 20 days from now, not that I am keeping track or anything!)
Such a big, huge thank you to y'all for loving us and helping us out. We still need it and probably will for a while. When you give to us, it is like God is giving to us, and we feel so loved by you AND by Him. No doubt He adores these little girls, and He has rescued them (by bringing them to us) AND He has rescued us (by letting us parent them)...because He knew that we needed them just as much as they needed us.